Amnesty for Congolese rebels

Amnesty for Congolese rebels

Mark Dummett
BBC, Kinshasa

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila has signed an amnesty law pardoning some acts of war committed since the start of the conflict more than four years ago.

The amnesty pardons the rebels for attempting to topple the Kinshasa government, but does not cover any war crimes committed during this period.

Crimes against humanity are exempted from the amnesty

The rebels have also been amnestied for aligning themselves to foreign countries who had invaded the national territory.

The DR Congo conflict started when Rwanda and Uganda sent their soldiers in support of rebels trying to overthrow the Congolese government.

The two countries said the Kinshasa government was threatening their security by backing insurgents.

This prompted Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia to send in their forces to fight on the side of the government.

However most foreign troops have now left the country.

'Women buried alive'

"As a rebel, you don't need to bury women alive, and you don't need to eat pygmies. Those are war crimes and those crimes have not been pardoned, the Information Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi told the BBC.

The amnesty was one of the key issues agreed to by all the major warring parties, when they signed up to a new constitution earlier this month.

So far the main rebel leaders have not yet come to Kinshasa to take up their seats in the power-sharing government headed by President Kabila, but the day when that happens does seem to be drawing nearer.

The UN has now sent expert to investigate massacre

Countering this progress however are almost daily reports coming from eastern Congo, of large troops movements, of clashes between rival rebel factions and of atrocities committed against the civilian population.

Probing atrocities

In the capital Kinshasa on Wednesday, the UN peacekeeping mission released information on three separate human rights investigations.

In the first case, they said they had established that at least 70 people had been killed in the government-controlled town of Ankoro, in Katanga province last November, when the army clashed with pro-Kinshasa local militias.

In the second, the UN said that forensic experts were on Wednesday flying to Ituri region in the north east, to establish exactly how many people had been butchered and then buried in mass graves during a three hour massacre in Drodro earlier this month.

In the final case, the mission said that fighting was continuing in south Kivu province between two Rwandan-backed groups - the largest rebel movement RCD-Goma, and a Mayi Mayi ethnic militia group called Mudundu 40.

A UN team went to a village 60 kilometres north of Bukavu on Tuesday where they were told 16 civilians had been killed.

Giving amnesty is one thing, but most people in Congo demand that one day the war criminals will be punished.